User guide for the Publication Forum classification 2019

The Publication Forum is a publication channel classification system implemented by the Finnish scientific community that supports the evaluation of the quality of research output. This user guide contains the recommendations of the Publication Forum Steering Group set by the Board of Directors of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) on the responsible use of the Publication Forum classification system to assist in the evaluation of research output.

The Publication Forum classification system was originally meant (i) for the evaluation of the average quality of a large number of publications produced by universities. The classification is not meant for (ii) the evaluation of the quality of a smaller number of publications produced by the units of universities or other research organisations or individual publications – articles or monographs – nor for (iii) the evaluation or comparison of individual researchers.

The Steering Group feels it is necessary to provide instructions for the use of the Publication Forum classification system, as universities in Finland have also recently started to use it for (ii) unit and/or (iii) researcher level evaluation and comparison. These instructions describe the underlying assumptions and limitations of the classification and provide guidelines for the use of the classification in the evaluation of research according to the principles of responsible metrics. These instructions include, for example, the principles presented on the Publication Forum website and at various events. In the preparation of this user guide, international statements of responsible metrics have been used: DORA declaration, Leiden manifesto for research metrics, and the Metric Tide report.